Burned Out
by shelllessturtle
Summary: Emily contemplates why Agent Hotchner rejected her so summarily after their first interview. Angst warning. Very slight shippage of Hotch/Emily, because no story of mine would be complete without it.


A/N: I know I normally write Hotch/Emily romance, but this kind of happened, and who am I to deny the bunnies? It's a bit angsty, and there's a hint of Hotch/Emily in there (come on, did you think I could write a fic that _didn't_ ship them?). Anyway, I hope you like it!

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She leaned back against the wall, the cardboard box sagging in her hands, and tried very hard not to cry. It had been a hard week. Her previous boss hadn't wanted her to go, and he had fought hard against the transfer request, and completely ignored her when she told him that she _did_ want to go, that she had applied for the transfer. Once the orders came through that she _was_ going, and essentially her boss could go do something anatomically impossible, he had been very dark and angry, and she had not been able to go out on a good note.

She was out, though, even if it looked like she might have to go back. She was out of her old department, and Emily Prentiss was now standing in the BAU in Quantico.

The past couple minutes had been very unexpected. Emily had not expected Agent Hotchner to recognize her, nor had she expected to feel the returning creep of the girlish crush she had had on him when he worked for her mother, but she _really_ hadn't expected him to reject her as summarily as he did. As she watched him walk away from her with Agent Gideon, she felt the unexpected sting of tears in her eyes, and the sinking fear in her stomach that she _should_ have expected when Agent Hotchner told her that there had been a mistake.

It took a few moments, but she managed to gather herself together enough that she could leave the building, her box still in her hands, and not break at the gentlest touch.

She did not want to go back. She did not want anything to do with the person she had been or what she had done at her last job. She had started there fresh out of the Interpol mess, burned out and traumatized by the time spent pretending to be in love with a man she despised. Her new co-workers had quickly learned that Agent Prentiss did not talk about the past, thank you very much, and anyone who tried getting close would be treated coldly. Once she had gotten a reputation for being distant and unfriendly, it had been hard to shake. The BAU had presented an opportunity for a fresh start, a way to become a real person again, and not just the shadow she had been.

She couldn't remember how she had gotten home, just that she was there safely. She checked all the doors and windows, wondering absently if there would ever be a time when she wasn't looking over her shoulder.

Strauss had _promised_ her that spot. The director had assured her that everything was in order, but now Emily was starting to suspect that something underhanded was going on. She didn't think that Agent Hotchner was having her on; he had never been the type of person to do that, so the only person that left was Strauss herself. Emily wouldn't put it past her to go over a unit chief's head behind his back. It was the type of thing she did.

She would call Strauss and find out what was happening. She would demand answers. She was an ambassador's daughter, and while she would never use her mother's name to forward herself, she shared the commanding presence her mother had needed as a woman in her line of work.

But that could wait for later. Somehow, she was exhausted already, and she decided that she could use a nap.

As Emily stripped off her suit and put her pajamas back on, she couldn't help thinking that maybe Agent Hotchner had been right to reject her out of hand. Maybe Strauss was wrong to have sent her to the BAU. What did she have to offer this team that no one else could do?

She hit back fiercely against that statement. She would not doubt herself. She was a good profiler, and she knew that she could fluently speak more languages than the rest of the team put together.

Emily collapsed onto her bed, not bothering to pull up the covers, a line of music from a half-forgotten song filtering through her mind: _By ten o'clock, I'm back in bed, fighting the jury in my head._

She would call Strauss when she woke up, and demand to know what was going on. When the BAU team got back, she would meet Agent Hotchner and prove herself to him. She would be—not herself, because she still didn't know who that was, but whoever the team needed. Maybe if she found that she _could_ be the person the team needed, she would _become_ the person the team needed.

It would be good to be someone again. It would be good to be whole and full again, to rebuild her burned-out center. She had been a hollow non-person for too long, and it would be wonderful to become someone again.

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A/N2: Lyrics are from the Amanda Palmer song "Have to Drive." If you liked the story, leave a review and tell me why! And if you didn't like it, also leave a review and tell me why!


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